


Tyranny of Flatpacks

by WolffyLuna



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, IKEA Furniture, d20 fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 03:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10152398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/pseuds/WolffyLuna
Summary: Carey and Killian try and assemble a duck house from Fantasy IKEA





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written by rolling a d20 whenever the characters did something (with the exception of Magnus, who just took ten) to see whether they succeeded or not. Carey and Killian are apparently pretty bad at putting flatpacks together (though Carey is worse.)

It felt weird standing here. The world had nearly ended a month ago, but Killian was standing next to here on a bright green lawn behind a little farmhouse. A creek babbled a little way down, and a huge apple tree shaded them. It wasn’t just too mundane for the post-not-apocalypse, it felt to idyllic. 

Staring at the flat pack in front of her with a mix and anticipation and dread brought things back from idyllic to mundane. They may have helped save the world and gone into retirement from hero-dom, but they hadn’t retired from fighting bits of wood and bad instructions. 

“This can’t be too bad,” Killian said, trying to psych herself up.

“You’ve said that about all the other furniture we’ve made,” Carey replied. 

“It’s not furniture, it’s a coop--” 

“--there’s a run too.”

“It’s a coop and run, which aren’t furniture. Anyway, it can’t be as bad as the table,” Killian said.

“The bookshelf was worse.”

“The bookshelf was a cakewalk compared to the table.”

Carey held up two taped fingers. Half the shelves had fallen on her hand mid-construction.

“Okay, so the bookshelf had a higher casualty rate, but it didn’t take half as long as that bloody table.”

Carey shrugged. “True.”

They stared at the box and roll of wire for a minute. 

“We should probably start this,” Killian said, hoping she wouldn’t have to start making it and it would just magically assemble itself.

“Well, you’re the one who wants ducks, so you should probably get a move on.” 

“Hey!” 

“I kid, I kid. I want ducks too, and I’ll totally help, but still, you should do the honours.” Carey waved a hand in front of the box.

Killian stepped over to the box, opened it, and pulled out the instructions. 

She’d never understood why they just used pictures for instructions. Sure, it saved them on translations, but the fantasy toaster people managed to translate things without going broke. It made everything way more unclear. The list of bits was just endless subtle variations on ‘rectangle of wood’ and ‘screw,’ and Killian couldn’t work out the difference between them. Pulling out the sheets of wood didn’t help much, though thankfully fantasy IKEA at least had the sense to stick labels on them. 

Carey peaked over Killian’s shoulder, climbing over her to get high enough. She peered at the instructions and made an expression like they'd been static-ed out voidfish-style. “I... have no idea.” 

“Me neither.” Killian turned the instructions side to side as she tried to puzzle them out. “Hang on--” 

She grabbed two bits of wood and a handful of those little dowel things. “This goes with this--” she shoved to bits of wood together and knocked in the dowels. “And that with that--” 

It took her all of three minutes to get the floor and two sides together. 

Carey stared dumbly. “I’m... I’m impressed.” 

“When you’ve got it sideways, the instructions make much more sense.” She turned the piece of paper again. “...Well, the first few do.” The instructions devolved back into drawn gibberish. 

“We could just go get Magnus to do it, trade some eggs for it or something,” Carey said.

“We can’t get Magnus to do all our carpentry, it’d be--” Killian trailed off. What would it be? Taking advantage of his skills? Giving up to early? Something else? Whatever it was, Killian had her pride, and she wasn’t running to that idiot at the first sign of assembly difficulty. 

Carey walked around the box. “The other two sides can’t be too different from the first few? Like, that wouldn’t make sense.” 

“The front should have a hole for the door, but--” Killian turned the page repeatedly, going a full 360. “--I don’t know.”

“Hang on, let me so those--” Carey took the instructions. “I’m pretty sure J2 goes on the front.” 

“You sure?” 

“Pretty sure. See, it’s half the height of the other pieces.” Carey screwed the piece into place. As she did, the wood cracked from corner to corner.

Carey blinked twice, holding onto one-half of the board. “Er, duck tape?” 

“I’ll go grab some.” Killian trotted up to the house. She opened the backdoor. Towers of boxes lined the edge of the hallway, and she had to turn sideways to get in. 

The ‘dining room’ at the moment was more the ‘general household supplies and paperwork’ room. Killian shuffled through the papers. She’d remembered putting the duck tape here--

She felt along the table, till she felt the sticky cloth top of the roll. She grabbed it and ran back outside. 

Carey threw her arms up in the air. “Yes!” 

Killian handed it to her. 

“I’ll... tape it from the inside, I guess.” She hunched awkwardly over the hole that would turn into the roof. “The ducks’ll never notice.”

Killian gave the piece a gentle nudge with her foot. It stayed in place.

The next two pieces went on easily with a minimum of cursing and bits going missing.

Killian held the last two screws in her hand. “I have like, zero clue what these are for.” 

“To be confusing. Fantasy IKEA always puts a couple in just to mess with you.” Carey put her hands on her hips and gave a self-satisfied sigh. “We are now officially free from the tyranny of the flatpack.” 

“There’s the run too.” 

Carey deflated. 

They stayed silent for a moment, staring at their handiwork and ruminating on the work that went into it. 

“I normally wouldn’t suggest this,” Killian said. “But do we just want to pay Magnus to make the run?”

***

Carey carried out a plate of raspberry scones.

Magnus hammered the chicken wire onto one of the posts. It’d been only an hour and a half, and he’s already got all of the wooden frame and some of the wire up, the skilled bastard. 

Carey held out the plate. “Another scone?” 

“Oh, thank you!” Magnus put down the hammer and picked up a scone. 

“You’re fast.” 

Magnus spoke through a mouthful of scone. “Comes with practice. You know, you don’t have to pay me with eggs, these scones are payment enough.”

“With the number of eggs ducks lay, you’ll be getting eggs whether you want them or not.” Carey had done the math. They’d be getting twelve to twenty eggs a week, which was a fucking absurd amount of eggs. Like, that was more eggs then even Killian could eat before they went off. It was just too many eggs.

“Just, don’t feel obligated too.” He swallowed. “When I’m done with this, do you want me to fix up the crack in the duck house?” 

Carey shrugged. “Go ahead, just don’t feel obligated.” 

Magnus grinned at the echo. “It’ll bother me if I don’t. Those flatpacks are more trouble than they’re worth, aren’t they?” 

Carey replied with more conviction than she thought possible. “Definitely.”


End file.
